"Every
Gift Has a Responsibility"
Master lithographer,
sculptor and Graphic artist Kathe Kollwitz dedicated her art to serve the
ordinary working people of her time whose hardships tended to be overlooked
by the wealthier classes. It was of crucial importance to Kollwitz that her
work be moderately priced and widely accessible, features intrinsic to the
graphic arts.
In 1898 the painter
Max Lieberman founded the Berlin Secession, its membership included artists
such as Ernst Barlach, Edvard Munch, Henri Matisse and Kathe Kollwitz. This
movement rejected art that served mainly as a diversion for the middle classes,
considering that one of art's most important functions was as a means of communication,
a universal language for everyday truths, recorded for posterity and with
the hope that the impact of this highly emotive media would perhaps shake
people awake to begin making changes for the better.
Expression was
perhaps one of the most fundamental elements of her work:
"An
artist who is also a woman cannot be expected to unravel uncomplicated relationships...
as an artist I have the right to extract the emotional content out of everything,
to let things work on me and then give them outward form..........Expression
is all I want." 1 (entry in diary 1922)
However, her
style was too traditional and naturalistic to place her amongst the order
of German 'Expressionist' artists that were her contemporaries. She was an
individual, exploring subject matter of great social significance at a time
when it was quite unfashionable to do so.
Kollwitz' life
spanned three important eras of German history. She was born in 1867, four
years before the creation of Bismarck's 'New German Empire' (1918), under
Kaiser Wilhelm. She witnessed the collapse of the Wilhelminian Reich; the
birth and eventual demise of the Weimar Republic (1919 -1933), and she was
one of the artists outlawed by Hitler's malevolent Third Reich who prohibited
the exhibiting of her work, labelling it 'Degenerate Art'. Kollwitz died in
1945, just four weeks before Hitler committed suicide.
Born in Konigsberg,
Germany on the 8th of July 1867 to parents Karl Schmidt, a master stone mason
and architect and Katharina Schmidt, nee Rupp. As a child, she watched the
men as they worked on the river Pregel that flowed past the house of her parents
on the Weidendamm. She, her brothers and sister would play among the bricks
that were unloaded from the flatbarges, for her father's building contracting
business:
"Beautiful
to me were the Konigsberg Longshoremen... ...beautiful was the bold outline
of the movements of ordinary folk."2
Her grandfather,
Julius Rupp (1809-1943) had a profound influence upon Kathe. He was the founder
and leader of 'The First Protestant Free Religious Congregation' in Germany,
meeting in defiance of the state controlled church of Kaiser Friederich Wilhelm
IV. She would visit the house of her grandparents on Sunday mornings when
Julius was giving one of his sermons. He spoke to his congregation not only
of the importance of morality, intellect and duty, but also of his concern
about the injustices, perpetrated against the proletariat, reminding them
of the fate of heroes such as those that were massacred in the Berlin uprising
of the18th of March 1848, the 'Marzgefallenen'. This was a subject later depicted
by Kollwitz in the lithograph, 'March Cemetery'. (app.1)
It is an image
of the workers paying their respects to those that died in the revolution.
Kollwitz finished the print with red water-colour and brush and black Ink.
The red a sharp reminder of the blood that was shed and the use of the brush
over the lithograph conjures the texture of the homespun cloth worn by the
workers. The men and women paying homage, sketched stoically, standing 'cheek
by jowl' in a line. Symbolising the solidarity that existed between the workers,
the gaunt grim expressions telling of the immense strain in their lives and
of their resignation, determination to continue the fight for justice.
Kathe's father,
a dedicated social democrat, actively encouraged her to pursue a career as
an artist, he recognised her talent, from her early drawings of the longshoremen
and market workers. He arranged for her to receive her first art lessons in
1881-1882 from the engraver Rudolf Maurer (1805-1945) in Konigsberg, who first
introduced her to printmaking. When Kathe was seventeen, Schmidt sent her
away to study at the 'Zeichnen - und Malschule des Vereins der Kunstlerinnen'
in Berlin, a School for women artists, hoping that there she would avoid the
distraction of romance. Marriage, he felt, would detract too much from her
time that could otherwise be used for the development of her career as an
artist. Later Kathe said of him and her grandfather:
"I
feel the influence of two generations in me: My father....because he served
to introduce me to socialism, socialism understood as the much desired Brotherhood
of Man. Behind him stood Rupp, a being linked not to man but to God, the
religious man."3
At this School,
Kathe was tutored by the Swiss artist Karl Stouffer-Bern, at this stage Kathe
was still intent on becoming a painter. Stauffer-Bern was instrumental in
guiding her into the field of the graphic arts by introducing her to the works
of Max Klinger, in particular his cycle of etchings entitled 'A Life'.
"In
this highly influential work, Kollwitz found validation for the direction
she would eventually choose."4
Later Kathe read
Klinger's treatise 'Painting and Drawing' which helped to strengthen her conviction
that the graphic arts were the only valid direction for her talents. In 1886
Kathe returned to Konigsberg where she studied with Emil Neide, this was also
the year that she got engaged to Karl Kollwitz, a medical student, much to
the consternation of her father.
In 1888 Kathe
went to Munich, where she studied painting and the use of colour under Ludwig
Herterich for two years, but Kathe did not feel comfortable working in this
field. In a letter to a friend, Paul Hey, she remarked:
"With
my eyes, I always paint very well but with my hands I'm deficient."5
Kathe
returned once again to Konigsberg in 1890 where she rented a studio and began
experimenting with graphic art. Her first cycle of etchings were based on
'Germinal', Emil Zola's naturalist mining novel, (app.2).
On the 13th June the following year, Kathe married Dr Karl Kollwitz, they
moved to 25 Weissenburger Strasse in Berlin, where Karl established his practice,
(Kathe-Kollwitz-Strasse in the Prenzlaver Berg district, as it is known today).
Kathe's contact with Karl's working class patients afforded her valuable insight
into the kind of lives that these under privileged people had to lead:
"Frau
Pankopf was here. She had a completely black eye. Her husband had gone into
a fit of rage.... The more I see of this, the more I understand that this
is the typical misfortune in workers' families. As soon as the husband drinks
or is sick and without work, the same thing happens. Either he hangs like
a dead weight on his family ... or he becomes melancholy ... or goes mad
... or commits suicide. For the woman it is always the same misery. She
maintains the children, whom she must feed ...." 6
In 1893 after
the birth of her first son Hans in 1892, Kathe attended the opening performance
of Gerhart Hauptmann's controversial play 'The Weavers'. She abandoned the
series on 'Germinal', and began work on a new cycle entitled 'A Weavers` Rebellion'.
This cycle, completed in 1897, consisted of six images: 'Poverty', (app.3).
An anguished mother, head in hands, crouches over the bed of her starving
baby, while the gaunt figures of her husband and another child look on. The
room is dark and we gather, from the weaving equipment, that is shown in the
background, that the family have to live, sleep and work, in this same room.
'Death'
(app.4),
depicts a woman, a man and a child in a small dark room with a low ceiling.
From the middle of the group a skeleton figure representing death, reaches
across to touch the arm of the woman, who sits slumped against a wall. Kollwitz'
manipulation of the light shining out from the candle that sits on the table
is powerful, ironic. It brings the scene to life.
Unfortunately
I was unable to find an example of the piece called 'Council'.
'March of
the Weavers' (app.5).
In this piece, Kollwitz conveys a variety of different moods amongst the workers
as they march. Some wear the expression of weary resignation upon their faces,
others look, adamant, determined, whilst some just look cold, hungry and depressed,
one carries a child. Kollwitz has used charcoal on this picture symbollising
the black mood and anger that enveloped the weavers, who shout angrily as
they march.
'Storming
the Gate', (app.6),
is a beautifully detailed piece that contrasts the rough and ready workers
as they pick up large stones for ammunition from the pavements outside, against
an immense, ornate wrought iron gate, behind which we can see the huge mansion
of the landowner.
'End'
(app.7)
the last plate in the cycle, this again displays Kollwitz`masterful manipulation
of light and shade that gives her work a clarity and depth that is second
to none. This picture shows the dead strikers being laid out in the room of
an old woman, her face is grief stricken but her fists are clenched in anger
as the bodies are carried in.
"Kollwitz
adhered to the traditional academic practice in producing the cycle, making
preparatory studies of individual elements, assembling them into a finished
compositional sketch, and reworking it onto the copper plate, which she
built up over a series of states." 7
'A Weavers'
Rebellion' was exhibited at the Greater Berlin Art Exposition and earned
her a nomination for the gold medal, but the decision to award her the medal
was vetoed by the Kaiser, who considered the subject matter to be insurgent.
However in 1899, Kollwitz was awarded the silver medal from the German Art
Exposition in Dresden (the Kaiser did not have as much influence there). Kollwitz
was very much encouraged by the reception that 'The Weavers Rebellion' received:
"The
choice of this infamous work guaranteed her an audience and established
her reputation as an advocate for the downtrodden."8
Kollwitz was
the first to admit that her choice of rural and urban proletariat as subject
matter was not entirely due to her social conscience:
"I
would like here to say something about the characterisation as 'social'
artist, that accompanied me from then on. Certainly my work by then already
referred to socialism through the attitude of my father, my brother and
through all the literature of that era. My actual motive, however, for choosing
from now on the representation of the life of the worker was that selected
motifs form that sphere simply and unconditionally were what I perceived
as beautiful.....People from the bourgeoisie were entirely without charm
for me. The bourgeois life seemed entirely pedantic to me. On the other
hand, the proletariat had great style."9
There followed
a particularly prolific period for Kollwitz creatively. During this time she
conducted experiments with colour printing, pastels and chalks, creating many
of her self portraits, nudes and the 'Women with Dead Child' series 'Die Carmagnole'
(app.8)
In 1902 Kathe
started to work on some experimental sheets for 'Peasants War', a commission
that she had received from the Society for Historical Art. (app.9)
She visited Paris
in 1904, for several weeks, where she studied Sculpture at the 'Academie Julian',
she met Rodin at his studio and spent time making several drawings and pastels
from the life that she observed in the Paris markets and night spots. Upon
her return from Paris she continued with her 'Peasants War' series, which
she completed in 1908.
"Her
most ambitious work technically. It cements her reputation as one of the
foremost German printmakers."10
In 1914 Kollwitz'
sons volunteered for army service. Her youngest son Peter was killed on 22
October in Dixmuiden in Belgium. This sad event stoked up Kollwitz' outrage
for what she perceived to be such a completely unnecessary waste of human
life. She questioned the logic that compelled young men to be so eager to
die for their country. In 1918, after the poet Richard Dehmel made his appeal
to all capable Germans "to sacrifice themselves to the Fatherland".
The Social-Democratic newspaper 'Vorwark' published Kollwitz angry reply:
'She answers
that enough people have died and that no more should fall. She quotes from
a greater poet than he, Goethe, with the words: "Seed corn must not
be ground."
This she used
for the title of the last lithograph made by her, in 1942, (app10).
This shows a woman desperately covering her young children with her arms to
prevent them being taken away from her. The expression upon the woman's face
is one of defiance. Kollwitz would simplify the figures in her pictures so
much that they became reminiscent of charicatures. Presumably the intention
behind this was to maximise the accessibility of the messages that she was
intending to convey. Her determination that her artwork should be readily
available and affordable to everyone, together with the posters that she made
for so many social causes resulted in her becoming one of the most well known
and well loved graphic artists of her time. `
REFERENCES
1. Entry
into Kathe Kollwitz` diary of 1922.
2. P.91,
para 3. Kollwitz In Context. By Alessandra Comini.
3. P.177,
para 3. Kathe Kollwitz.
4. P.15,
para 2. Kollwitz Reconsidered.
5. Kollwitz
letter to Paul Hey, 22 September 1889, Kollwitz 1966,16.
6. Kollwitz
1989, 41-43, entry of 19 september 1908.
7. P.24,
para 2. Kollwitz Reconsidered.
8. P.21,
para 1. IBID.
9. Kollwitz
1989, p.741. 11 P.180, para 2 Kathe Kollwitz.
10. P.180, para
11, IBID.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kathe Kollwitz,
by Elizabeth Prelinger with essays by Alessandra Comini and Hildegard Bachert.
National Gallery of Art, Washington. Yale University Press, New Haven and
London.
Kollwitz, Kathe.
Briefe der Freundschaft Und Begegnungen, edited by Hans Kollwitz Munich 1966.
Kollwitz, Kathe.
Die Tagebucher, edited by Jutta Bohnke-Kollwitz. Berlin 1989.
The Story Of
Modern Art by Norbert Lynton. PHAIDON 1994.
